Illumina has teamed with the University of Oxford in England to search for the genetic roots to several cancers, immunology disorders and other life-threatening diseases, the San Diego genetic sequencing company said Wednesday.

Illumina will sequence the full genomes of 100 patients at its Chesterford, U.K., facility. Genomes from another 400 patients will be sequenced at Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics on HiSeq 2000 devices made by Illumina.

The work will focus on genetic mutations that are difficult or impossible to identify using less comprehensive genetic testing methods, the company said.

The effort is the latest example of how the falling cost of sequencing is expanding use of the technology beyond research laboratories into the clinical setting for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

“This collaboration represents a remarkable and very important step toward using whole-genome sequencing for translational medicine, where a patient’s individual genetic information can be used to make key health care decisions,” said David Bentley, vice president and chief scientist at Illumina.

The company didn’t say how much money it will spend on the project.

Already, Oxford physicians have used the whole genome sequences of a 4-year-old girl and her family to diagnose a life-threatening cranial developmental defect.

“The initiative represents a crucial step as we move toward a new health-care paradigm in which genetic information from next-generation sequencing is likely to become much more widely used in routine medical practice,” said Peter Donnelly, director of the Wellcome Trust Centre.

Illumina is a global leader in the genetic sequencing industry and makes a number of genetic testing machines and the products used to operate the devices.